Chancellor announces major new development in Ebbsfleet and extension to Help to Buy: equity loan scheme.

The Chancellor has today announced further support for hardworking people to realise their home owning aspirations and support construction of 120,000 new homes.

The Help to Buy: equity loan scheme, which has so far helped over 25,000 households to afford to buy or reserve a new-build home, is to be extended to 2020 and a further £6 billion invested to help 120,000 more households purchase a new-build home.

Every home built under the equity loan scheme is a new-build home, and with research showing the scheme currently supports up to 30% of all new build homes in England, extending the scheme will provide greater certainty to housing developers so they can invest in building the new homes of the future.

The Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee is unaffected by this change to the Help to Buy: equity loan scheme.

The Chancellor also set out ambitious plans and up to £200 million of public investment for a major new development around the high speed rail station in Ebbsfleet in Kent, which is only 19 minutes from Central London, to provide up to 15,000 new homes based on existing brownfield land.

The area has long been identified as having great development potential, but investment and progress have been stalled for decades, which is why the government wants to create a powerful new body - similar to what happened in Docklands in the 1980s – to really drive and promote the area, co-ordinate investment from government and solve the issues that have held back development.

It is a going to be a “Garden City” Development Corporation, with a mandate to build spacious, attractive, high quality places to live – modelled on popular garden cities like Letchworth or Welwyn Garden City.

The proposed development at Ebbsfleet will develop so called brownfield land – including former industrial sites and a former quarry.